Gotham Sweeps Athletic- Moves to 5-1

The Athletic of Philadelphia traveled up to New York for its first ever meeting with the Gothams this past weekend. To help the Gotham BBC inaugurate its home field, the Philadelphia Athletics swaggered into town pontificating that the Athletics are known to dominate lowly New York City teams. Hah! the Gotham team exclaimed.

In its first match for the first time ever, Bugs took the mound to pitch. Through 9 frames, Bugs pitched a masterpiece by walking no one, and demonstrated an amazing confidence in his defense by pitching the ball before most of them were ready. In the top half of the first frame, the Athletics drew first aces with 2. In the bottom of the 1st frame, the offensive horse carriage, Keystone hit a 3 base hit, but his Gotham BBC teammates failed to bring him home. In the 2nd frame, the Gotham BBC held the Athletics scoreless and the Gotham BBC scored two on well struck 1 base hits and steals by Monk, Bugs and Stacks.

In the top half of the 3rd frame, the Athletics scored 2 more aces. In the bottom half of the 3rd frame, Flytrap scored an ace on a 1 base hit, 2 stolen bases and a 3 base hit by Wickets. Huzzah? With Collector umpiring the frame, 1 hand and Wickets on 3rd base, Wickets started reading from his well known how-to-run-the-bases book “Wickets and the Art of Running.” Monk hit a beautiful fly ball to left field; Wickets seizing the opportunity ran home; and the the left fielder proceeded to catch the ball and through to 3rd. Unfortunately for the Gotham BBC Wickets got doubled up. Collector with his usual enthusiasm, screamed him out!

In the 4th frame, the Athletics scored 1 ace and the Gotham BBC batted more than around scoring 9 aces with Monk and Bugs scoring twice that frame. In the 5th frame, the Athletics scored 1 and the Gotham BBC followed with 3. The 6th frame, the Athletics scored for the last time that game and the Gotham BBC scored 8 more aces, with 4-pack getting his first stolen base as a Gotham. In the top of the 9th with 1 hand down and one Athletic on 1st base, Stacks took the cue from Bugs and believed in the Gotham BBC superior defense. He allowed a towering fly ball to drop through his hands, picked it up, threw to 2nd base getting the runner; and Keystone threw to 1st base getting the striker. Double play, end of game. Gotham BBC 21 Athletics 8.

In the 2nd match, the Gotham BBC began the match with Collector, Flytrap and Bugs scoring aces. Hanky hit a 2 base hit but was stranded there. The Athletics matched the Gotham aces by tallying 3 of their own. Wickets stymied the Athletic offense by picking off an errant Athletic. In the top of the 2nd frame, Stacks, Mouth (Athletic), Collector, Flytrap and Wickets scored aces. In the bottom of the 2nd frame, the Athletics scored 1 ace. In the 3rd frame, the Athletics held the Gotham BBC to 0 aces and the Athletics scored 1 ace. In the top of the 4th frame, Wickets and Monk scored two aces. In the bottom of the 4th frame, the Athletics did not score thanks to an amazing foul ball, 1 bound out, slam into the fence, catch by Wickets.

In the 5th frame, Collector, Wickets and Monk struck well, stole bases and scored aces! The Athletics scored 0 aces. In the top half of the 6th frame, the Gotham BBC did not score. In the bottom half of the 6th frame, Weed participated in all 3 hands holding the Athletics to 0 aces. In the 7th frame, Flytrap, Wickets and Monk hit 1 base hits, stole a few more and scored aces. Of course, Wickets kept his Gotham BBC teammates in conimption fits by almost getting picked off at 2nd base. In the the bottom of the 7th frame, Wickets picked off another Athletic. Apparently, the Athletics have studied Wickets’ 842 page tome “How to run bases AND get picked off.”

In the 8th frame, Wickets was picked off at 2nd. However, Collector, Flytrap, Monk and Stacks scored aces, with Stacks stealing his way to 4th base. In the bottom 8th with an Athletic on 1st and 2nd bases, the Athletic struck the ball high to left field, the 2nd base base runner ran, Collector made a great catch, threw the ball perfectly to Hanky waiting at 2nd base to make the 2 handed play. No one scored in the 9th frame and the Gotham BBC won 20 Athletics 7.

TALBOT SWEEPS POTOMAC

In an important southern division match, the Fair Plays from Talbot kept up their winning ways by defeating the Potomac Nine from Washington 14-4 in the first game and squeeking by the club from our Nation’s Capital 6-5 in the night cap. The Fair Plays improve to 5-1 in the Maryland Series and 4-0 in the southern division.

ELKTON TAKES A PAIR FROM HAVRE DE GRACE

The Dauntless scored the first ace of the day in the first game, but then where white washed the rest of the way out as the Eclipse scored 22 unanswered runs to win the first game 22-1. The second game was much more of a contest. The Dauntless scored early and often to jump out to a good sized lead. The Eclipse wittled their way back and facing a 13-12 deficit going in to the bottom of the 9th frame, the visitors from Elkton tallied 2 aces to win 14-13 in a very spirited match on what turned out to be a fine day for base ball.

CHESSIES TAKE PAIR FROM EXCELSIOR

On Sunday, May 15th, under bright skies and on a miraculously dry field at Jerusalem Mill, the Chesapeake Nine of Baltimore won both ends of a doubleheader from the Arundel Excelsior, 10-5 and 14-7. Commodore and Scoop shared the hurling duties, which were made easier by great defensive play in the field. It’s hay season at the Jerusalem village farms and the outfield grass was very tall but the Chesapeake scouts had no trouble chasing down the balls hit their way. The hitting star of game one was Spider, who had several multiple base hits, and was wearing out a path between first and third. In game two, Shooter hit what we all thought was an inside the park homerun, a majestic fly straight down the right field line, but after much discussion and a Solomonaic ruling on the part of the arbiter it was ruled a double. It looked great nonetheless. Huzza to both clubs for two very well-played and sportsmanlike contests.

OTHER MATCHES

Flemington squeeked by Elizabeth 13-12 on Saturday while Mechanicsburg and Delaware were rained out. Mechanicsburg has been on the wrong side of rain outs and postponements all year and is still yet to get a match in. Brooklyn had a tough time in New England dropping both games to the Essex BBC and then spliting on Sunday with the Providence Grays.